Hallehn, Axel

Abstract [en]

Ukraine shares a long history with Russia. In the early 21th century, Ukrainians wanted a freer Ukraine. Therefore the orange revolution started in 2004 by the Ukrainians and had a positive outcome. The situation later became worse because of the economic crisis in 2008 and a corrupt president. The pro-western politician Petro Poroshenko was elected to become president in 2014. Since Poroshenko was elected, the Russian speaking part of Ukraine has felt a nationalist threat against them. Because of this, a conflict between Russian separatists supported by Russia and Ukrainians has risen in eastern Ukraine. The theories that have been used in this essay are the two classical descriptions of realism and liberalism to analyze the purpose with the study. The purpose was to find out, by analyzing the security situation in Europe in media, if there has been a shift toward the realist theory about how leaders and other partakers consider that peace and security should be made in Europe after the Cold war. The material used is articles from two Swedish newspapers: Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter and two British newspapers: The Telegraph and The Independent. Although both theories characterized how peace and security should be made, the result showed a shift toward the realist theory.